Heroes: "Exposed" Review

The fifth episode of Volume Four has aired.

I never knew a TV show about people with super powers could be so boring. Monday night's episode of Heroes involved people breaking into a government facility, a mother-daughter pair planning the escape of a hunted man and one man's unyielding quest to learn the truth of his existence. And none of these story lines ever became more interesting than the sentence I just wrote to describe them. With its use of storytelling shortcuts, forced tension and ambiguous dialogue, "Exposed" earned the honor of being this season's least engaging episode.

Much of the episode followed the Bennet family (sans Papa) as they worked to help Alex the human fish escape the government and get to Albuquerque. We're supposed to care about Alex and his general wellbeing because, well… because the episode told us to. The story was more about Claire and her mother reaching a new level of their relationship than it was about saving Alex. This worked to an extent, as Claire got to see another side of her mother: the fake-ID-making, lying-to-government-agents side. Unfortunately, all the tension in this story was poorly created. Two agents were watching the house for most of the day, until they randomly decided to enter the house to take a look around. What the hell? If you can do that, why are you sitting outside in a van? Why not sit in the living room?

And then when Sandra Bennet created a diversion by trying to exit her driveway, Alex and Claire successfully snuck out the back. But since they'd been planning this all afternoon, they must have been too busy to see if the trashcans (or whatever could make some noise) were in the way. Their backyard noisemaking led to an intense moment where Claire and the guy who can breath under water hid at the bottom of a pool while the government agent with a flashlight looked in about one-third of the water. But, hey, at least we got to see these two characters that built absolutely no chemistry over the course of one and a half episodes kiss. Right?

Still, we did have a chance to get some cool action as Peter and Parkman tried to break into Building 26 to rescue Daphne. Cool action like Parkman raising an eyebrow and Peter grimacing. This is the Building 26. They named an entire episode after this thing. Yet all it takes to gain access to their files is to walk down the hall and use the force on a couple guards? And then while Parkman and Peter were stealing their proof of this government cover-up, Parkman taunted everyone in the security camera. Why the hell isn't this elite taskforce storming that room with teargas and bullets?

Meanwhile, Sylar stopped at an old, abandoned diner and uncovered a long hidden memory: he once lost a toy car. If only he could have saved his car, years of killing could have been avoided. Also, his father sold him and killed his mother. This may have had more of an effect if A) we didn't already have two or three other Sylar origin stories, and B) they didn't use that peppy, up-tempo flashback music during the money exchange and murder. It's just another example of Heroes changing the backstories of their characters, and then not even telling the new story very well.

Three major things happened in the closing moments, and I found only one of them to be worthwhile. Peter released the tape of the initial operation to the news media and they aired the footage, talking about the Patriot Act going too far. Not sure how they came to that conclusion exactly since the footage they were airing only shows nondescript people in hoods being loaded into a plane. This was a weak shortcut to "expose" the operation. The Hunter, meanwhile, was set to prove that people with powers are a threat by covering Matt Parkman in the dynamite foreseen in the paintings. Because some random guy blowing himself up and taking a good portion of Washington, D.C. with him is something only a mind reader could do. Where's the logic in this?

Ultimately, the best part of this episode was seeing that Rebel had sent The Puppet Master to Claire for help. This set up what could be an interesting story. Claire doesn't believe that people with powers should be locked away, but will she still want to help someone avoid capture if they've already proven they are as much a threat to society as the government believes? It's a tantalizing idea that likely won't become any more interesting than the sentence I just wrote to describe it.